


Just Stand Still

by moondustings



Category: Merlin (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Coffee Shops & Cafés, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Angst with a Happy Ending, Bisexuality, Christmas, F/F, First Time, Fluff, Friends to Lovers, Getting Together, Holidays, Humor, New Year's Eve, Winter
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-22
Updated: 2016-12-22
Packaged: 2018-09-07 10:43:37
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,300
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8797732
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/moondustings/pseuds/moondustings
Summary: Mithian was a quiet, flannel-clad, baseball cap-wearing bookworm who lived a quiet, lonely life in the tiny village she grew up in, who spent most of her time in the small café she owned, pouring coffee for people she wished she were brave enough to try to befriend. She also thought she was straight... until Elena burst into her world and changed everything.





	

**Author's Note:**

  * For [ingberry](https://archiveofourown.org/users/ingberry/gifts).



> Happy Merlin Holidays, ingberry!!!
> 
> All of your prompts were so wonderful, it was impossible to pick one... so I went for a combo of as many as I could reasonably combine. ;) Thank you so much for those, and for allowing me the opportunity to write some femslash for these wonderful ladies. <3 It's not explicitly a Gilmore Girls AU, per se (btw, BEST IDEA EVER)... but I hope the nods I worked in work for you! 
> 
> I hope you enjoy this as much as I enjoyed writing it for you, and that you have a wonderful holiday season! <3
> 
> Many heartfelt thanks to my wonderful friends who cheered me on throughout my writing this, and especially for supporting and encouraging me whenever I doubted myself (read: always).
> 
> And, of course, thank you to our glorious mods for all of their hard work and for keeping this magical fest going for us. <3

 

 

“You’re sure I can’t convince you to stay?” Gwen asked softly across the threshold of her doorway. “Not even for just a little while longer?”

Mithian gave her a small smile and shook her head. “No, really, I think I’ll just head home now. I’m quite tired, I have a lot to do tomorrow... it’s been a long week. I’ll just call it an early night tonight, maybe catch up on some sleep.”

Gwen smiled sadly at her, a look of pleading in her warm brown eyes. She took hold of Mithian’s hands.

“But it’s New Year’s Eve,” she said, squeezing Mithian’s hands between her own. “Just until midnight?” Mithian laughed and squeezed back, then pulled Gwen into a hug.

“It’s what I want, I promise,” Mithian assured her. From her view back into the apartment from over Gwen’s shoulder, she could see everyone else at the party badly pretending they weren’t all staring down the hall after her and Gwen, with looks on their faces ranging anywhere from pouting to pitying to even slightly desperate.

 _God_ , Mithian thought, _how pathetic am I?_

Sighing inwardly, she felt painfully aware of the answer to that question.

Pulling her gaze away from her friends in the living room, Mithian disentangled herself from Gwen’s embrace, accepting a kiss on each cheek from her as she did so.

“I’ll see you for breakfast in the morning,” Mithian assured her.

Gwen gaped at her. “You’re open tomorrow?” she asked, incredulous. “Mith, it’s a holiday! For God’s sake, take a break!”

Mithian shrugged. “Someone has to pour the coffee,” she replied, returning a soft kiss to Gwen’s cheek. “Thank you so much again for everything, Gwen. I'll see you tomorrow. ‘Night, everyone!” she called behind her as she made her way outside.

“Are you sure you don’t want a lift home?” asked Lance, voice full of warm concern.

“It’s a five minute walk!” she called back, shaking her head.

“Yes, but it’s _freezing_!” Freya pointed out, causing everyone around her to nod and “mmhmm” enthusiastically in agreement. Morgana stood in the center of the living room looking very grave for someone wearing multiple glittery New Year's Eve party hats on her head; Percy, Leon, and Elyan all shivered and shook theatrically despite being inches from the roaring fireplace; Merlin laughed at this in spite of himself, and Arthur laughed at Merlin laughing.

Mithian rolled her eyes. “I’ll be fine,” she assured them.

“Please don’t go, darling!” Gwaine yelled, voice cracking. By the look of his flushed cheeks, Mithian thought he was probably a few too many champagne glasses into the evening to fully grasp what was going on, but he looked devastated all the same. He stuck out his lower lip in a dramatic pout. Mithian huffed a laugh.

“I’ll see you all for breakfast,” she said, kissing her fingertips and waving goodbye to them, turning away and down the steps to the sidewalk.

As she made her way out onto the road and away from the warmth of the apartment and the presence of nearly everyone she loved, she realized just how cold it actually was. She pulled her hands out of her coat pockets and wrapped her arms tightly around herself, but despite the frigid temperature, couldn’t seem to bring herself to speed up her steps. Instead, she walked slowly through the quiet night and her tiny town, watching the white clouds of her warm breath puff into the wintry air before her. She looked around at the little shops lining the sidewalks, charming window displays all dark for the night, though the white fairy lights upon all the trees around the town still twinkled and blinked merrily. Mithian glanced from them up to the glow of the silent, white moon and accompanying stars, shining so brightly on such a clear night, and tried to pretend her heart wasn’t breaking.

It had been exactly one week since she had made what was very possibly the biggest mistake of her existence. It was one week tonight since Christmas Eve, when she had officially lost her mind and kissed Elena.

They had been celebrating the occasion in traditional fashion for their group, at Gwen and Lance’s comically tiny ( _“but seriously cozy,”_ as Elena would say) apartment, with handmade gifts, homemade food, and plenty of drinks. Far, far too many drinks, apparently — this being the only excuse Mithian could come up with which could possibly explain her sudden bout of pure insanity.

Well, that, and... possibly the way Elena’s crazy, golden hair had glowed in the firelight, or the way her cheeks had flushed the prettiest shade of berry pink, either from the wine or from something Mithian had said, she couldn’t be sure... but she had hoped. Maybe it had had something to do with the way Elena had so proudly presented the lopsided baseball cap she had somehow constructed for Mithian to add to her collection ( _“New year, new hat!”_ ); the bill was huge and tilted dramatically to the right, covering the upper right half of Mithian’s face and obscuring her vision entirely as Elena placed it atop her head with the utmost seriousness. Elena had poked out the pink tip of her tongue in concentration as she tilted in the same direction of the hat, trying to see Mithian underneath it. Mithian had burst out laughing, Elena glaring at her in silence at first, then eventually joining her until they were both doubled over in their chairs, nearly crying with their laughter.

Possibly it had something to do with the particular flush of warm, radiant joy Mithian had felt bubbling up and tingling through her in those perfect moments — possibly some of the purest joy she had ever felt; the kind she had only ever felt since Elena had burst into her quiet, solitary life in a whirlwird of color and sound two years before. Had it really only been two years? What had her world even been before Elena?

Mithian had lived in the same little village her whole life, but it was only once Elena arrived that she truly felt at home there. Bright and bubbly, full of unabashed enthusiasm for life (and caffeine) and passion for ridiculous things Mithian had never even known existed, Elena seemed to bewilder and then charm almost everyone she met instantly. Her favorite café regulars, a group of friends or family or maybe some combination of both (Mithian could never quite tell back then) which she had always quietly longed to be a part of, had quickly adopted Elena as one of their own; she belonged as if they had all been missing her all along, before they ever knew her.

Or at least that’s how it had felt to Mithian, who had watched all of this from what felt like miles away, on the other side of some invisible wall she had never worked out exactly how to climb over.

Elena, though, had noticed her right away, and despite her being surrounded by a large circle of loving new friends made up of people who must’ve been much more interesting than Mithian, had seemed to like her best of all. Then again, maybe it was just the coffee she was really interested in; regardless, whether for Mithian or the six cup minimum her coffee addiction required, Elena started coming into her shop several times a day, every day, always sitting up at the counter, never at a table, and always talking to Mithian as much as she could.

When the café was slow or when it was near to closing in the evenings and Mithian had more time to really talk, they really did — they would talk for hours, long after Elena had finished her "last" cup of coffee or third slice of cake, sometimes even long after Mithian had finished all of her closing tasks for the night. They would talk about anything and everything — for once, Mithian talking too, not just listening; and Elena was a wonderful listener. Loud as she naturally was, Mithian found Elena could also be remarkably quiet, and any time someone spoke to her, she listened deeply. It was one of the first things about her that Mithian had been struck by (aside from the outrageous amount of coffee she drank and sugar she consumed on a daily basis; it couldn’t be healthy).

Slowly (or maybe not so slowly, if she was honest), Mithian had come to know Elena as the kindest, funniest, most caring, loyal, and truly fascinating human being she had ever met; and somewhere along the way, she also found herself enfolded into Elena's group of friends, who also happened to be some of the loveliest people she’d known. Mithian felt wanted, valued, and loved with them all, and lived every day just a little bit nervous that it all might go away again at any moment. She treasured them all the more for it.

She felt truly alive in this new life she had stumbled into; Elena made her feel alive.

...okay, so possibly this disaster had happened because Mithian had fallen just slightly (hopelessly, excruciatingly) in love with the woman who had become her best friend in the world.

“But that was no reason to go and _kiss_ her!” Mithian chastised herself as she walked, throwing her arms hopelessly into the air as she did. “What was I thinking? Well, of course, I _wasn’t_ thinking — nice going, Mith, the one, _singular_ occasion you allow your brain to shut up for just one moment, and you destroy the greatest friendship you’ve ever had. Wonderful. Truly stunning job.”

As she yelled at herself, the tiny voice in the back of her mind rudely butted in to remind her: she _had_ had at least one thought... and it was the thought that, in that one glowing, hazy moment, Elena had _wanted_ Mithian to kiss her. There had been a look; or at least, she’d thought there had been. She’d thought they’d had a moment... and Elena had definitely kissed her back. She’d thought, maybe, just within that moment, that there might’ve been the slightest chance that all the while they had been on the same page after all... but she had been wrong. Clearly.

Before they could talk about or even process what had happened between them, they were separated by a sudden surge of party activity that required both of them in different places. They spent the rest of the night glancing awkwardly at each other across rooms and then quickly looking away, until eventually Mithian was somehow selected as the one to help Arthur guide a very drunk Merlin upstairs to their own apartment ( _"My husband, ladies and gentlemen,"_ Arthur had declared to the hallway around them as Merlin took a spectacular fall into their front door in his sudden passionate quest to "beat them to it"). By the time Mithian had returned, Elena had disappeared; the next morning, she had slipped even further away, apparently to a Yuletide Renaissance Faire over fifty miles away.

Aside from the brief text she had received that morning (a simple reminder about where she was going, no mention at all of anything else) Mithian hadn’t heard a word from her since.

She had ruined everything.

 

______________________________________________

 

Once Mithian reached home, the familiar distressed wooden  _Mith's_ sign above the door attempting to welcome her, she realized perhaps the last thing on Earth that she wanted was to go inside. The biting cold had long since robbed her fingers and toes of all feeling, but from where she was standing, it looked even colder inside. The white fairy lights delicately strung from the windows of the shop were all turned out, the only illumination in her whole building emanating from the front window of her apartment above the café. Suddenly, the thought of tucking herself into her bed alone with a book (a normally treasured pastime for her), at 10pm on New Year’s Eve, made her feel unbearably lonely.

She turned away from the darkened windows and decided to walk a little while longer.

By the time she made it halfway around her second lap of the town square stretched in front of her building, she felt the sting of tears pricking her eyes. As she made to brush one away with a gloved hand, the cotton got stuck — her tears were literally freezing as they fell against her face. Mithian half laughed, then began to cry harder; tugging the glove free of her frozen cheek with a sting, she resolved to go home.

As she turned around to head back, she stopped short when she saw the same fairy lights in the windows downstairs suddenly, inexplicably twinkling at her from across the square. She blinked a few times, furrowed her dark brow, and stood still a few moments, wondering if she was losing it — and then her heart leapt into her throat with a sudden burst of hope. Could it be...?

Mithian couldn’t wait a second more to find out and began running toward the light, which made for a strange sensory experience seeing as she couldn’t actually feel her feet beneath her anymore.

Reaching the door, she found it was unlocked, and burst through.

“Elena?” she cried out, rushing from one corner of the small shop to the next, none of them lending any sign of Elena (nor any sign of some nefarious small town holiday burglar).

Wasting no time to linger, she flew up the stairs to her apartment, tripping a bit on the landing; normally Elena was the clumsy one, the thought of which made Mithian’s heart both flutter lightly and seem to drop low with the weight of her guilt, shame, and regret.

“Elena?” she called as she spilled through the doorway, clutching onto the heavy dark wood of the door for balance. Her eyes frantically scanned the small space for a glimpse of the ridiculous golden head more dear to her than any in the world.

Mithian’s heart sank when she saw neither this nor any other trace of Elena. Slowly, she walked further inside, setting her bag on the table and slipping her coat off and onto a chair. The sudden warmth of the apartment made her fingers and toes tingle; she rubbed her hands against the soft sleeves of her red tartan flannel shirt as she made her way toward the bedroom area of her studio.

“Elena?” she asked softly, one more time, no longer expecting a reply.

She sat down on the edge of her bed, wrapping her arms around herself again, then sliding her forehead into the heels of her palms, sighing deeply.

She sat for a few minutes in silence before resigning herself to the inevitable trek back downstairs to turn the lights off and lock the door. In the back of her mind, she realized she should probably be alarmed by this lights and locks mystery, but she felt, honestly, like she just couldn’t be bothered at the moment. Maybe she’d find some room to worry about it tomorrow.

“Alright, Ghosts of Christmas Past, or whoever you may be,” she said to the empty stairway as she made her way back down. “The party is ending now, and the lights are going back out for the night, so if you would be so kind as to just—“

Mithian froze. In the same instant she rounded the corner at the bottom of the stairs, the front door of the café burst open, the bell above tinkling wildly — and then, just like that, there she was. Huffing and puffing as though she’d just run a marathon, formal Renaissance gown half hidden beneath her giant furry parka... Elena.

For a moment they just stared at each other, mouths hanging open, until Elena broke the silence with a winded cry of “ _There_ you are! Where have you been?”

“Where have I—“

“You were supposed to be at the party!” Elena barked, doubling over and reaching out for the nearest chair, cheeks darkly flushed and heaving deep breaths between words as she fell heavily into the seat.

“The party?” Mithian echoed, brow furrowing in confusion.

“I finally got there to meet you, and you’d gone! So I ran all the way here in my dress — broke one of my heels again — and then you weren’t here, either! Everyone said you’d come here, so I jimmied the lock, thinking maybe you just didn’t hear my knocking—“

“You _broke in_ to my apartment?”

“—but you weren’t, you weren’t here, and then — and then, I — I turned the lights on, and went back out to look for you, but I still couldn’t find you, and then I,” Elena cut herself off momentarily, gasping for air. “And then I was just thinking about running back to Gwen’s, when I saw your shadow in the window! And then I ran back. And now... I’m here. And _you’re_ here, finally!”

“You... you came to the party? Gwen’s party?”

“I came to surprise you," Elena panted. "Did I not mention that?”

“You came to surprise me at the New Year’s Eve party?”

“Why are you echoing everything I’m saying?”

“I’m sorry,” Mithian said, shaking her head a bit to clear it. “I’m just confused. I thought you were at the Renaissance Faire until next week.”

Breaths slowing down, Elena stood back up and gestured dramatically to herself from head to toe. “I _was_ at the Renaissance Faire.”

Mithian smiled as Elena attempted and failed to straighten the holly berry crown atop her head, strands of wild blonde hair caught up and tangled in the leaves. The gesture reminded Mithian of their moment with the cap from Christmas Eve, and her heart seemed to squeeze in her chest.

“But you came back?” Mithian asked.

“Of course I came back,” Elena answered, taking the first step between them toward Mithian. “I didn’t want to spend New Year’s without you.”

“But you just left,” Mithian protested. “You didn’t say a word. I thought—“

“ _You_ left! I thought you were avoiding me,” Elena insisted. “I thought... well, I’m not sure now what I thought. But I just—”

Mithian took a deep breath and a hesistant step forward, wringing her hands in front of her.

“Elena... I’m so sorry,” she began. “I just... I’ve been dying to tell you all week how sorry I am. I don’t know what came over me on Christmas Eve... I have no excuse. I never meant... I’m just so, so sorry, Elena. The last thing I would ever want would be to hurt you or upset you, or do anything to damage what we have. You’re my best friend. I... I don’t know what I would do if I lost you.” Mithian swallowed with difficulty around the lump rising in her throat again. “I’ve been distraught every minute since that night. I’m just... stupid, and silly, and I don’t know what I was thinking, but I’m so, so sorry. Can you forgive me?”

Elena blinked at her.

“Forgive you?” she asked.

“Yes.”

“ _Forgive_ you?” Elena repeated. “For kissing me?”

Mithian nodded, near tears again. She could feel the intensity with which Elena was suddenly studying her, working to take in every nuance of her expressions, the tremble and crack of her voice.

“You think... did you think I was upset with you?” Elena asked, voice incredulous.

Mithian both nodded and shrugged, feeling more confused by the second, but strangely hopeful, too.

“Mith... I...” Elena started.

Mithian looked down at the floor, focusing on the way the glow of the fairy lights bounced off the hardwood in the otherwise darkened room.

“Mith... I _love_ you,” Elena said emphatically, almost impatiently, as if it were something unbearably obvious.

“What?” Mithian asked, head shooting up.

Elena sighed. “I _love_ you, you idiot!”

She paused, swallowing hard, and then bit at her lip as Mithian just stood there opening and closing her mouth like a small, confused, flannel-clad fish. “You really are silly if you didn’t know that.”

Mithian’s heart was beating at least a million miles per hour.

“What exactly do you mean by that?”

“What do you _mean_ , what do I mean?” cried Elena, voice squeaking a bit.

“I mean, there are many kinds of love. Do you mean you love me like a best friend, or like a sister, or like—“

"Oh, for God's sake—"

Mithian found the rest of her sentence cut off by this exclamation, and then by her own gasp as Elena suddenly closed the remaining distance between them and crushed her lips against Mithian’s own.

This kiss was nothing like their last. Where that one had been soft, slow, full of gentle hesitancy and the hazy flush of wine-drenched warmth, this one was intense, desperate, almost rough in its urgency.

Elena’s lips, freezing from her recent laps out in the frigid square, sent shivers all the way down to the tips of Mithian’s warming toes with every pressing touch. As Elena wrapped her cold hands (always cold, even in summer; _“Cold hands, warm heart, as my gran always said”_ ) around Mithian’s lower back, Mithian pulled her closer and pushed her own hands up the back of Elena’s dress beneath her puffy parka. When Elena pushed her tongue between Mithian’s parted lips and swept lightly inside, Mithian moaned, quite involuntarily.

When Elena finally pulled away, Mithian had to work to catch her breath.

“Wow,” she breathed.

“Still think I love you like a sister?” Elena asked, grinning rather wickedly.

“God, I hope not,” Mithian replied, pulling Elena’s mouth back down to her own at once and pushing her parka off as quickly and gracefully as she could manage. With the bulk of the coat gone, Mithian could finally feel the shape of Elena’s body against her own as they pressed together up against the glass of the shop's bakery display. Mithian felt as though her whole body was aflame, and her heart so light it might escape her chest and fly away from her at any moment — Elena was kissing her;  _wanted_ to be kissing her. The moment she had imagined perhaps thousands of times, played out in her mind in hundreds of ways, was really happening.

“Oh,” she said, breaking the kiss. “I love you, too, by the way.”

Elena’s buoyant, exuberant laugh lit up the room and filled Mithian’s soul like music.

“I thought I should probably mention that,” Mithian managed to say through her own laughter.

Elena kissed her several more times, short, playful kisses dancing across Mithian’s cheeks, her neck, her nose, eventually landing back home upon her lips and sinking deeply into a slower, more gentle kiss, much more reminiscent of their first.

When Elena pulled back this time and pressed their foreheads together, Mithian cleared her throat.

“Do you... um...” she tried, suddenly filled with nerves.

“What?” Elena asked.

“Do you want to... go with me...” Mithian trailed off, her eyes glancing over her shoulder toward the staircase up to her apartment.

Elena’s face lit up immediately, and without actually answering, grabbed Mithian’s wrist and took off running for the stairs. Mithian supposed that was an answer.

Elena tripped over the broken heel of her shoe (or perhaps just her own feet regardless) on the third stair, bringing them both down hard upon the steps and tangling their bodies together, hysterical laughter binding them there longer.

By the time they made it into her apartment, Mithian was breathless again, as well as filled to the brim with a nervous thrum of excitement and anticipation.

Elena wasted no time, pressing their bodies back together as she attempted to push Mithian backward across the room toward her bed, kissing her frantically all the while. A foot away from their destination, Mithian tripped over the towering pile of books she’d brought home the other day and hadn’t quite shelved yet. Falling backward with a cry, her leg hit the softness of the side of her bed just behind her, and the two of them fell together on top of it, Elena cracking up loudly again.

“We’re already _very_ good at this,” Mithian said.

“Oh, that reminds me!” Elena burst out. “Wait here just a second.”

She crushed their lips together into one more messy kiss, then launched herself off of Mithian and disappeared into the tiny bathroom, slamming the door behind her.

Mithian lay panting on the bed, heart pounding, trying to be patient, when an idea struck her, too.

Jumping up from the bed, she pulled open her bedside cabinet and retrieved a box of long matches. Striking one, she made her way as lightly as possible around the room, lighting the candles in their usual homes atop all surfaces sturdy enough to hold them. Blowing out the match, she pulled her shoes off and placed them at the foot of the bed, switched off her bedside lamp, and settled back down in the center of her bed.

Just then, Elena emerged from the bathroom, her own shoes dangling from the fingertips of her right hand. Dropping them to the floor with two heavy thumps, she ran her hand up the doorframe slowly and posed, hip popping out, berry lips pouting dramatically in a picture both endearingly ridiculous and unbearably seductive.

Mithian’s eyes roamed her body slowly, taking in the delicate details of her long dress floating just above the floor, the light, silky material hugging her curves and shimmering softly in the candlelight. Mithian suspected Elena had spent most of her time in the bathroom trying to fix the usual unruly, wild mess of her hair, which did now look slightly more tamed, and fully let down from the partial updo from before, tips just brushing the top of her waist in a cascading fall of golden waves.

“Wow,” Mithian managed, the rest of her words lost somewhere within her.

Elena beamed, and then made the short jump from the doorway onto the bed, crawling toward Mithian as best she could in her dress.

As soon as she was close enough to reach, Mithian stretched out her arms and pulled Elena up to her, and then on top of her, and Elena leaned down for further kissing, deep and languid now, both of them savoring and delighting in the simple, wonderful fact that _this was really happening._

After a short while, both of them seemed to decide that this slowness was a silly idea after all, and their kisses began to flare back up with heated urgency again.

Mithian ran her hands up and down the length of Elena’s back, her silken dress warmed through with the heat of Elena’s body beneath Mithian’s fingers. Elena eventually moved from Mithian’s mouth to the base of her throat, leading a trail from the hollow there up the side of her neck and to her ear, Elena's hot breath there causing Mithian’s toes to curl and her body to squirm a bit beneath Elena's. Response duly noted, Elena decided to dedicate a bit of quality time there, first brushing light, warm kisses along the edge of her ear, and then lightly licking a hot, wet swirl inside, making Mithian cry out in surprise and heightening arousal.

Elena moved back to Mithian’s mouth at that, pushing her tongue back inside and sliding it against Mithian’s in a slowly building rhythm, rocking her body lightly against Mithian’s.

Without breaking their kiss, Elena began to move her hand up the left side of Mithian’s body, then hesitantly brought it to lay lightly upon her breast through the fabric of her shirt and bra. Elena did pull her lips away from Mithian’s then, but only to ask “Is this okay?” to which Mithian replied by pulling Elena back down hard onto her mouth, pressing her body up into the touch.

“I’ll take that as a yes,” Elena mumbled through the crush of their mouths, making Mithian giggle and nod.

“Take it,” she replied, pulling away just for a moment to make sure she was making herself perfectly clear.

“Oh, I’ll take it,” Elena said in an unnaturally deep voice, waggling her eyebrows, making Mithian laugh again.

Suddenly Elena’s mouth was back on Mithian’s throat, but moving downward this time, hand now caressing Mithian’s breast in soft circles as her lips made their way down Mithian’s neck, across her collarbone, and down her chest and stomach. Even through the thick fabric of her shirt, Mithian shivered at the touch, closing her eyes and pushing her fingers into Elena’s hair, brushing against the delicate leaves of her holly crown.

“Ah, I should probably take this off,” Elena said suddenly, reaching to touch the crown and sitting up in Mithian’s lap.

“Wait,” Mithian said, opening her eyes and propping herself up on her elbows.

Elena froze mid crown-removal, eyes wide.

“No, you can keep doing that,” Mithian clarified with a light, nervous laugh. “I meant... ‘wait, I need to tell you something... first’.”

“First?” Elena repeated, still looking confused.

“Before we...”

“Oh!” Elena said, understanding, then tugging the crown off the rest of the way and reaching across Mithian to place it on the nightstand. She rolled off of Mithian's body and lain down on her side next to her, propped up on her own elbow and looking serious. “Is something wrong?”

“No! Not at all,” Mithian hurried to reassure her, reaching out to cup Elena’s cheek with one hand and stroke the soft skin there. “Nothing’s wrong, I just...”

“What?”

“I just want to make sure you know... I’ve never done this before.” Mithian bit her lip nervously and waited for Elena’s response.

Her eyes widened slightly.

“Never?” she asked.

“Well, never... with a woman, I mean,” Mithian clarified.

“Oh, right! I see,” Elena replied, chewing her own lip and looking thoughtful, eyes roaming Mithian’s face. After a moment, she stopped the chewing and leaned forward to place a gentle kiss on Mithian’s lips, her own hand now on Mithian’s cheek, stroking it with her thumb.

“That’s okay,” she assured her. “ _I’ve_ never been with a man.”

Mithian snorted a laugh at the unexpectedness of that reply.

“I don’t know that that’s really relevant here,” she said.

“Alright, true,” Elena said, now sitting up on her knees next to Mithian, hands in her lap. “What I mean is... it really makes no difference, you know? It’s always different every time, with every person... gender has nothing to do with that, really.”

Mithian nodded, relief flooding through her and beginning to outshine her anxiety. This was all just... so much, and so new to her. Until she’d met Elena, Mithian hadn’t been _unaware_ , exactly, that she was attracted to women occasionally; but it was always just a physical, fleeting thing — something she never really paid much attention too, honestly. The thought of bisexuality as a concept that might not actually be just a concept after all, but rather a reality which in fact applied to her personally, had never even crossed her mind.

Until Elena.

Elena had changed everything. _Everything_.

“What are you thinking about?” Elena asked, hand now holding Mithian’s, thumb rubbing lightly over her fingers.

Mithian turned her head toward Elena and looked into her eyes.

“You’re the first woman I’ve ever... wanted this with,” she stated honestly, attempting to simplify her jumble of thoughts. “You’re the first woman I’ve ever loved.”

Elena smiled warmly back at her. "Really?"

 Mithian nodded, heart swelling with emotion again. "Really."

Elena slid back over to Mithian then and kissed her deeply.

Both smiling stupidly through a new barrage of kisses, they rolled over together until Mithian was on top, the both of them now tangled up in Elena’s dress.

Mithian looked down their bodies to where their legs laid tied up in sparkly fabric.

“Well,” Mithian stated, feeling Elena’s body shake with laughter beneath her. “This is...”

“I think there’s only one solution,” Elena declared.

“Oh yeah?”

“Oh, yes,” Elena insisted seriously, pushing herself up until Mithian was straddling her waist. As Elena began to slip one delicate cap sleeve down her shoulder, Mithian stopped her.

“Let me,” she said, gently removing Elena’s hand and replacing it with her own.

She traced her fingers down the sleek material of the front-closing corset top, then brought them back up to begin working the hook and eye clasps apart. Elena’s chest rose and fell slowly as Mithian worked.

Once she reached the bottom, Mithian ran her fingers down the sides of Elena’s stomach again, this time feeling the warmth of Elena's soft, delicately freckled skin.

She helped Elena pull her arms out from the sleeves, and then took a moment just to drink in the sight of Elena before her, clad only in the white lace strapless bra she'd worn beneath and the still-tangled skirt of her dress. Elena allowed her a minute just to look and touch, and then moved her own hands forward to begin unbuttoning Mithian’s oversized flannel shirt. Mithian bent forward as she did so, long dark hair spilling across Elena’s chest; Mithian kissed the side of her face while Elena's hands navigated the fabric between them.

Shirt successfully abandoned, Mithian stood up on her mattress to pull her own jeans off as Elena wriggled out of her skirt beneath her. Losing her balance on the second leg atop the soft and wobbly surface, Elena rolled out of the way with a shriek just in time to avoid being crushed as Mithian fell down, both of them laughing again. With the bottom half of one calf still stuck in her jeans, Mithian crawled back on top of Elena, straddling her hips, and Elena reached to grab the offending material and yank it the rest of the way off Mithian's leg, tossing the jeans to the floor where they belonged.

Deciding again that this slow pace was for dummies, Elena quickly sat up again, pulling Mithian into a string of kisses and wrapping her arms around her waist, moving quickly up to the clasp of her bra. Mithian reached behind Elena and did the same in turn; at last, they were both free of all clothing from the waist up.

“Oh,” Elena said breathlessly, reaching out to run her hands softly over this newly exposed expanse of Mithian’s body. Mithian gasped, Elena’s hands still just slightly chilly, causing her to shiver at the sudden cooling sensation (which was not at all unpleasant, for the record).

“You’re so beautiful,” Elena hummed, a breath away from Mithian’s lips. “Even moreso than I imagined, which is... you’re so...”

“Perfect,” Mithian replied. “ _You’re_ perfect, I mean,” she quickly clarified.

Elena giggled against Mithian’s lips as she kissed her, then rolled them back over until Mithian was beneath her again.

Elena spent a short time focusing on another gentle but pressing exploration of Mithian’s mouth, and then moved back over to the ear action which had seemed to please her so much before. When Mithian moaned in anticipation before Elena even arrived there, Elena smiled, proud of herself. She was learning (and apparently mastering, if Mithian’s moans and wriggling beneath her were any indication) some of Mithian’s secrets already; she desperately aspired to advance from novice to expert in all things Mithian in record time, given the opportunity. She could actually be an excellent student if only she was passionate about the subject.

Mithian’s hands were clutching Elena’s back now, running up and down her skin occasionally, but mostly just pressing down hard, squeezing Elena tightly against her. Elena took this as a sign that it was okay to move further, so she did, leaving Mithian’s ear behind with a light goodbye kiss and making her way back down the side of her neck, then her chest, until she reached Mithian’s breasts, newly bare skin beautifully aglow in the soft light of the candles.

She first propped herself up on one elbow in order to free her other hand, which she used to run softly over Mithian’s chest, and then to cup the fullness of one breast in her palm, brushing her thumb over the dark pink of Mithian’s nipple, the softness suddenly hardening and standing erect at Elena’s touch. Elena smiled to herself again.

Mithian was so overwhelmed with both the physical sensation and her emotional reaction to everything Elena was doing, she wasn’t sure what to do with herself. When Elena switched from the hand she’d been using on her chest in favor of the warmth of her mouth, Mithian moaned loudly. Elena ran her tongue in a long, slow circle around her breast, then took the nipple into her mouth, swirling her tongue in even smaller, more concentrated circles there. Mithian writhed against the weight of Elena’s body on top of her, desperate to be touched lower now, but this time Elena did not oblige, instead simply moving from one breast to the other to continue the same torture there.

“Elena,” she finally panted out. “Please.”

Elena placed one more kiss upon her chest, and then pulled herself back up toward Mithian’s mouth. Seeing the look of desperate exasperation on Mithian’s face at Elena’s chosen direction, Elena laughed before kissing her, then quickly reassured her by sliding off to press up against Mithian's side, allowing her hand new access to the rest of Mithian’s body.

Grasping where this was going, Mithian perked up in approval, pulling Elena’s face back to hers.

As Elena forced the speed of their kisses to slow, she moved her hand, also slowly, down the length of Mithian’s body, starting with the breasts she had reluctantly left before, then moving down, brushing over Mithian’s navel and then further down still, until finally she reached the hem of her underwear.

Mithian was close to losing her mind. Elena spent at least 30 seconds (the longest of Mithian’s life, probably) just playing with the silky lining at the hem of her underwear, ruthlessly teasing her; she could feel Elena’s mischievous smile against her lips.

Finally, Elena moved her hand further down, but remained on the other side of that cursed barrier of fabric. Mithian regretted ever even wearing underwear. She was never going to buy any ever again.

“Elena,” she tried again, breaking away from their kiss with a note of obvious pleading in her voice.

“What?” Elena asked innocently.

“You are evil,” Mithian groaned.

Elena laughed and then finally, finally, pushed her hand beneath the fabric, moving slowly downward and immediately finding the warm wetness there. Mithian moaned, a mix of relief and continued desperation, as Elena stroked her with a now perfectly slick hand, softly, slowly, up, then back down, and around in slow circles, pressing against her with an open palm. Mithian rocked against Elena’s hand in approval and supplication.

Finally, Elena’s hand moved slightly further upward until the tips of her fingers landed purposefully, at last, on Mithian’s clit.

Mithian whined into Elena’s mouth; Elena surprised her by increasing the pressure and speed of her rhythm right away, a shock to her system after so much teasing, and Mithian thought for a second she might not last any longer than a few seconds — something that had never, ever happened to her before; at least not any time another human being had been involved.

“Elena... oh my god,” she gasped out, Elena having moved her mouth back to Mithian’s neck. Elena slowed down, just for a moment, then sped back up again. Mithian writhed beneath her touch, feeling heat building everywhere in her body — her legs, her belly, the small of her back; she could feel the deep flush rising in her cheeks.

At once, she opened her eyes and forced herself to push Elena’s hand away, then pushed Elena onto her back and climbed on top of her.

“What—“ Elena started, but Mithian silenced her with an urgent, messy kiss, then slid down the front of Elena’s body, leaving a trail of fast kisses as she went.

“Oh,” Elena said, understanding.

Mithian paused long enough to look up at Elena from her current place above Elena’s belly button.

“Just so you know,” Mithian cautioned, “I have absolutely no idea what I’m doing.”

Elena laughed and pushed her fingers into the heavy silk of Mithian’s dark hair, stroking the top of her head softly in reassurance.

“Please don’t be nervous,” Elena said. “I mean, you can be nervous if you want, that’s fine. But it doesn’t need to be perfect; I mean, you’re already perfect... I mean... it’s... oh god, you know what I mean,” she stammered, the intensity of her arousal robbing her of any more coherent sentiment. Mithian laughed softly, overwhelmed with affection; she pressed a kiss to Elena's hip.

“I love you, is what I mean,” Elena said, insisting on getting it right. “This is already perfect; you’re perfect. I don’t care about... I just... love you. Alright?”

Mithian smiled up at her from beneath thick, dark lashes.

“Alright,” she replied.

Placing one more kiss on Elena’s stomach, Mithian took a last nervous breath and then slid down between Elena’s legs.

Feeling like a bit of payback was in order, she started with soft kisses against the fabric of Elena’s underwear. Even through the white lace fabric, Mithian could feel how wet she was. The thought that Elena had gotten so turned on from touching and kissing Mithian herself made her heart pound and squeeze with emotion again.

Elena whimpered as Mithian paused her kisses to huff a warm breath against her skin through the thin fabric; Mithian had no idea how Elena had the resolve to keep up her own teasing for so long, but Mithian abandoned her own play at it after that first sound of longing from Elena.

Mithian pulled back in order to slip her fingers beneath the fabric on either side of Elena’s hips and pull down slowly. Elena pushed and pulled her legs about and lifted her hips in order to help, and then the underwear was gone, tossed somewhere beside the bed, and it was just Elena, laid completely bare beneath Mithian’s gaze.

“You are so beautiful,” Mithian told her. Elena just whimpered again, and pushed her fingers back into Mithian's hair.

Mithian started by kissing the inside of each of Elena’s thighs, then moving for a second to the inside of her knees, because why not?

Kissing her way back to where she started, Mithian gave herself a short pep talk about bravery.

 _‘They’re just the same parts you have,’_ she told herself. _‘How hard can it be, honestly?’_

As it turned out, apparently not very: the moment Mithian tried a hesitant kiss against Elena’s lips, Elena arched her back beneath her and moaned.

 _‘Well then,’_ thought Mithian, feeling more courageous by the second.

Since it seemed to be working out so far, Mithian decided to keep with the kissing for a bit, slowly making her way down and around every inch of Elena’s warm skin, already so precious to her.

When Elena moaned in further approval, Mithian intensified her approach, kissing her slowly, deeply, reverently, until at last she paused at the source of Elena’s slick heat and ventured out with her tongue, pressing lightly into the entrance. Elena reacted immediately, moaning loudly and arching her back further, more sharply than before, rocking her hips in a desperate search for friction.

Mithian obliged, wanting to give Elena anything, everything she wanted, and all at once. Mithian slid her tongue from the center of Elena’s silken skin up to the soft nub of flesh at the top, settling her tongue against Elena’s clit and surrounding the area with the heat of her mouth before swirling the flat surface of her tongue in slow circles.

“Oh god,” Elena gasped, winding her fingers more tightly into Mithian’s hair; Mithian could tell she was trying very hard not to push any harder in her blind need for more pressure.

Mithian sped up her intricate designs upon Elena’s flesh, stopping only to change up the rhythm, trying out different motions and directions, varying degrees of focused and pointed vs. soft and flat with her tongue, trying to work out what Elena liked best.

Elena seemed to like everything.

“Mith — oh god... Mithian, yes... oh my god,” Elena panted, over and over again; yes and yes and yes again.

Keeping up the work she was doing with her mouth (though it certainly didn’t feel like work to Mithian), she propped herself up slightly on one elbow to brace herself, then slid one finger slowly inside Elena's slick, silken heat.

Elena cried out and bucked against Mithian’s hand as Mithian stroked her from the inside in time with the rhythm of her mouth.

“Oh my god, Mith... I’m close. I’m really close... oh fuck, please don’t stop...”

Mithian decided to try something she herself always liked — angling her wrist downward toward the bed, which pushed her finger higher up, Mithian slid in a second finger, and then, as she began to pull them back out, curled them toward herself in a “come hither” motion. She repeated this again and again as she continued with her tongue, much more quickly now, against Elena’s clit.

Elena let out a few more panting, unintelligible moans, and then suddenly arched her back up again and went very still; Mithian felt Elena’s muscles contract tightly around her fingers again and again, Elena's whimpered rendering of Mithian’s name filling the room and echoing through Mithian's head.

As Elena’s body went limp beneath hers, hands pushing gently against Mithian’s hair, Mithian stopped, reluctantly pulling away. She pressed a long kiss against Elena’s thigh and then rested her head on top of it, closing her eyes and trying to catch her breath, most of all just wanting to be still in this moment as Elena slowly caught hers.

“Wow,” panted Elena eventually. “Wow. That was... wow.”

Mithian smiled and angled her face up so she that could see Elena’s.

“Come here,” Elena requested, trying to tug her up by her shoulders. Mithian pulled herself up until she was hovering above Elena, face to face. Elena wound her fingers back into Mithian’s hair and pulled her down for a series of deep kisses, long and languid again now.

Pulling away to kiss Mithian’s forehead, and then to rest her own against it, Elena sighed as her breathing began to return to normal. She pulled her hands from Mithian’s hair and stroked them up and down her back.

“That was amazing,” she said.

“Really?”

“Um, _yes_ ,” Elena assured her. “That was... honestly, first times are usually always a bit fumbly and silly, you know? And that would have been great too, but... god. You were perfect.”

Mithian flushed and bit her lip.

“I’m sure I wasn’t _perfect_ ,” she said quietly.

Elena lifted Mithian’s chin up so she could look into her eyes.

“ _Perfect,_ ” she repeated. “You’re perfect... and I love you so, so very much. Do you know that?”

Mithian closed her eyes and sighed at the words, suddenly feeling as though she might cry. She leaned down for another kiss instead.

A few more of those later, and Elena pulled away, looking suddenly mischievous again, eyes bright anew.

“Now,” she said, rolling Mithian onto her back. “Where was I, exactly?”

 

______________________________________________

 

“Tell me more about how I’m the only woman you’ve ever loved,” Elena mumbled into Mithian’s shoulder multiple hours, several pieces of cake from downstairs, and two full cups of coffee (on Elena’s part) later.

Mithian rolled her eyes as she stroked her fingers up and down Elena’s side, now covered by the soft red plaid of the shirt Mithian had worn earlier.

“You are,” she said sleepily, bending her head to kiss the top of Elena’s.

“Mmmm,” Elena replied.

“Exactly,” said Mithian, feeling herself drifting into what she suspected would be some of the greatest sleep of her life — on top of being well and truly exhausted, she was also deeply happy.

“Oh my god!” Elena yelped, bolting upright and snapping Mithian back to full consciousness with a jolt.

“What? What is it?” she asked, heart suddenly pumping with adrenaline.

“We missed midnight!” Elena cried.

“What?”

“ _Midnight_ ,” Elena repeated. “The New Year! The _countdown_? The kissing thing! We missed it with sex!”

Mithian laughed.

“Oh my god, I completely forgot it was New Year’s Eve.”

“Well it isn’t anymore!” Elena exclaimed, indignant with disbelief at herself.

“I’m pretty sure we still got the kissing part in okay, though,” Mithian pointed out.

Elena considered this, and then shrugged.

“True,” she conceded, yawning. She flopped back down onto Mithian, snuggling into her side and using her as a glorified body pillow.

Mithian didn’t mind at all.

“You know,” said Mithian, clearing her throat, still a bit nervous to speak her feelings honestly, even after the many intimate events of the night. She had been waiting for Elena for so long, it was hard to accept that this was real now. But it was. “Even though we forgot about it,” she continued, “I think this is the best New Year’s Eve I’ve ever had.”

“New Year’s Day,” Elena corrected.

Mithian rolled her eyes again.

“Both.”

She felt Elena smile into her shoulder.

“Both,” Elena agreed, snuggling closer.

Mithian wrapped the heavy comforter more tightly around them, up higher over Elena’s shoulders. Now that the candles were all blown out, the moon seemed to shine more brightly through the window, making Elena’s hair glow softly beneath its silent, luminous light.

Mithian watched the snow slowly falling outside now as she felt herself slipping toward sleep again. She knew as soon as Elena noticed, she’d drag them both outside for an eternity no matter the hour, and right now, Mithian just wanted this perfect moment to last as long as possible.

Smiling to herself as she allowed her eyes to fall closed, Mithian made a wish.

 

 

 


End file.
